Dale M. Atrens

Dale M. Atrens contends in the following viewpoint that there is significant evidence contradicting the view that nicotine is addictive and little empirical evidence to support the claim. For example, nicotine does not produce any changes in the human brain usually associated with addictive drugs such as heroin and cocaine, he claims, proving that nicotine is not addicting. Atrens concludes that people use tobacco because doing so is pleasurable, not because they are addicted. Dale

M. Atrens is a reader in psychobiology at the University of Sidney and the author of several neuroscience textbooks. As you read, consider the following questions:

1. In Atrens’s opinion what is wrong with a definition of addiction that might reasonably include nicotine?
2. What is the basis for the author’s contention that...